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Offices of the Butterworth & Sons mortuary in Seattle, Washington, 1900.

A former funeral home in Seattle (2007)

A funeral home in Seattle (2007)

A funeral home, or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the deceased and their families. These services may include a prepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral.

Funeral homes arrange services in accordance with the wishes of families and the deceased. The funeral home often takes care of the necessary paperwork, permits, and other details, such as making arrangements with the cemetery, and providing obituaries to the news media.

There are a few common types of services in the United States of America. A Traditional Funeral Service consists of a Viewing (sometimes referred to as a Wake), a funeral service at the church of the deceased (or at the Mortuary chapel), and a graveside committal service. Direct Cremation consists of the mortuary receiving the remains of the deceased, filing the necessary paperwork (according to State Laws), and completing the cremation process. Direct/Immediate Burial is when the family of the deceased forgoes a funeral ceremony and solely wishes their loved one to be buried in a timely manner. Forwarding or Receiving of remains to or from another Mortuary is comprised of preparing the body for shipment in a Casket strapped into an airtray or a Combination Unit. This is used when the cemetery in which the deceased is to be buried lies in another State or country.

When the deceased are brought to the funeral home, they are usually embalmed to delay decomposition. The embalming procedure involves removal of blood from the corpse and the use of makeup to make corpse look more lifelike. If the deceased was disfigured from an accident or illness, the embalmer can sometimes perform restorative services to make the corpse presentable for an open casket service. If the embalmer is unable, or if the family requests otherwise, the funeral home can perform a closed casket service.

The funeral home often sets aside one or more large areas for families to gather at a visitation. This area contains a space to display the deceased in their casket for visitors to pay their respects. Funeral services and memorial services may also take place at the funeral home. Funeral homes also offer prearrangement services for those who wish to prepare their own funeral services before death.

Because of the increasing popularity of cremation, there are more funeral homes with crematoriums.^{[citation needed]} Funeral homes without facilities on-site often contract the work out to other firms.

Some funeral homes are family owned and operated. Others are part of larger corporations; however, unlike those in other industries, these corporations often act anonymously to appear as if they are family owned.^{[citation needed]} One of the largest corporations is Service Corporation International.

• The television series Six Feet Under portrayed a fictional funeral home.
• The television series Family Plots showed the operations of an actual Californian funeral home. The show lasted for two seasons before it was canceled.
• In the movie My Girl Harry Sultenfuss (Dan Aykroyd) ran a mortuary from his home.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Funeral homes

• Death industry
• Funeral Consumers Alliance